Measuring the effectiveness of Environmental Management Systems

Measuring the Effectiveness of Environmental Management Systems: Phase 1
2.4 Certification of EMS’s
“Defra believes that a robust and effective EMS should be externally audited
to a recognised international or national standard by a Certification Body
accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS)” (Defra
Positioning Statement April 2008), with the view that accredited third
party certification is important to realise many of the benefits of an EMS.
Companies with an accredited certified EMS are given greater recognition
by the Environment Agency under Integrated Pollution and Prevention
Control (IPPC) and some other regulatory regimes. Accredited certification
means that organisations can demonstrate to shareholders, regulators
and the public that their system has been audited, in the same way as are
their financial accounts, by those with appropriate professional skills, and
knowledge. The information provided by a certified system is often seen as
being more credible and reliable.
The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency in their position statement
has stated support for EMS and believes that they can “benefit the
company and the environment and assist companies in understanding how
environmental law applies to their site, products and operations”. However,
at the time of publication (prior to remas) they were unconvinced that
EMS had a sufficiently positive impact upon: permit compliance, frequency
of incidents, and numbers of public complaints. They stated that if, as a
regulator, they were to consider provision of financial incentives (such as
available via the Environment Agency’s Opra scheme) they would have to be
provided with “a clear case to the contrary” (SEPA, 2004)
Certification is the process by which an organisation’s system (e.g. its EMS)
is assessed for its conformity to the requirements of a standard (e.g. ISO
14001:2004). Certification Bodies (CBs) may be accredited to perform such
assessments where they meet the criteria in ISO/IEC Guide 66 (ISO, 2003) or
ISO/IEC 17021:2006 (from September 2008).
Accreditation bodies check on a regular basis via surveillance at the CB’s
offices, witnessed assessments at their client’s sites and other activities that
certification bodies are capable of providing accredited certification. Similar
processes are operated to accredit environmental verifiers to carry out
verification under EMAS, including the validation of EMAS environmental
statements, and IEMA Acorn inspection bodies.
Accredited CBs are bound by the requirements under which they operate
to maintain confidentiality. They must have arrangements to safeguard
the confidentiality of the information they obtain in the course of their
certification activities, including on-site audits. CBs cannot disclose
information to a third-party about the organisation that has been certified
without the written consent of that organisation. If there are circumstances
where the law requires information to be disclosed, then the CB must inform
the organisation beforehand of the information that they have been required
to provide.
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